A category of hierarchically porous tin (IV) phosphonate backbone with the implication for radioanalytical separation

A category of tin (IV) phosphonate, prepared by nonionic templating and solvothermal treatment, has been utilized to sequester lanthanides and actinides from a multitude of radionuclide surrogates. The multi-porosity encompassing micro-, meso-, macro- and available phosphonic acid moieties, assembling into a novel inorganic-organic hybrid backbone, endow the aggregates of tin phosphonate nanoparticles with distinguishing uptake of trace surrogates. A distribution coefficient in the magnitude of 10(4), 10(5) mg L-1 could be obtained for uranyl and thorium (IV) in moderate acidic media, which far exceed the uptake of lanthanides, strontium and aluminum. However, the trivalent iron was also significantly retained, behaving similarly to the light actinides. The surrogate radionuclides would be readily scavenged by the porous backbone within 8 h. Based on the affinity discrepancy in the nitric acid gradient and competitive adsorption kinetics, simple radioanalytical separations have been proposed utilizing these tin phosphonates to achieve preliminary enrichment of light lanthanides and actinides. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.